Adam Frisch believes there are two things that could have changed the outcome of his House race against Representative Lauren Boebert last year. This time around, he says he has both.
"I learned a couple things from last time," Frisch told Newsweek in an exclusive interview on Wednesday. "I think we could have used two more weeks on the road with no more money, just the momentum we were having, or we could have used a couple thousands more dollars because even though we raised more money than [Boebert] did last cycle, she started with a lot more."
With more than a year until Election Day, and record-breaking fundraising numbers, Frisch feels optimistic he'll have the time and money he needs to unseat Boebert.
Frisch shocked political pundits, pollsters and donors in the 2022 midterms after he nearly upset what was supposed to be an easy reelection campaign for Boebert. Although the state's automatic recount ultimately declared Boebert the winner by 546 votes, Frisch's stronger-than-expected performance made Colorado's 3rd Congressional District, a Republican stronghold, the closest House race in the nation.
Three months after his defeat, Frisch announced he would run against the conservative firebrand again, setting up a high-profile rematch that's poised to be one of the hottest races of 2024.
Frisch outraised Boebert by more than a million dollars last quarter, hauling in $2.6 million between April and June, more than three times the Republican congresswoman's $818,000, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.
Boebert has warned her opponent that "the seat can't be bought," but Frisch told Newsweek that point is obvious.
"For her to say that is quite ironic because if you look back, Club for Growth talked about putting in $20 million into three or four races and she's one of them," Frisch said. "She's lost the ability to raise money because she shows how vulnerable she is and she's not focused on the district. I would be willing to make a big bet that we will generate more money from the district, more money from the state, than she will."
It was reported last month that Club for Growth, an anti-tax group and GOP megadonor, is preparing a $20 million defense fund to help Boebert and her far-right House colleagues who opposed Kevin McCarthy's speakership bid in January.
Boebert pulled off her own political upset in 2020 when the newcomer defeated Republican Representative Scott Tipton. An outspoken voice on the right, she rose to national prominence for positioning herself as the conservative alternative to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for her efforts to carry a gun on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol and for embracing QAnon conspiracy theories.
A staunch Trump ally, she quickly became a rising MAGA star. Her political influence continued to burgeon after she cemented herself as a McCarthy holdout and scored rank-and-file members more power to wield over the House speaker.
Frisch said he had no problem with Boebert's efforts to block McCarthy's path to the gavel. In fact, he said, he understood that it was a way for her to score an important committee seat with which members of Congress typically try to send a message to their constituents. His problem was that she chose to trade her vote for a spot on the House Oversight Committee.
"If I would have been in there in that position, I would have used it to get on [the] agriculture [committee]," he said, "Water and domestic energy are two of the most important issues facing our district. But instead of using whatever influence she could have had [to do that], she used it to get on what I call 'the ghosts and goblins committee,' the oversight committee. Not because that's where the district's focus is, but because that's where she saw the most amount of Twitter opportunities."
"If you are not focused on water, domestic energy, rural economic development, natural resources, public lands, then you are wasting your time in Washington, D.C.," Frisch said. "She had the time to focus on that and she decided to focus on a bunch of investigations to boost her Twitter and cable news network profile."
Boebert did not respond to Newsweek's repeated requests for comment.
Colorado's 3rd Congressional District is unique, not only because it makes up half the state and is larger than the entire state of Pennsylvania, but because it's liberal mountain towns and rural farming odds make it a district where there are more independents than Republicans or Democrats. So, when Frisch is on the campaign trail, he's not running to tow a party line.
"I have no interest about red and blue," he said. "In my view, [the district] is 80 percent team Colorado and 20 percent team chaos, and I'm on team Colorado.
"With all due respect to the national [Democratic] party and the national leaders, they can do what they want. I'm going to do what Colorado's 3rd district needs. I'm going to be voting on the district and people can call my bluff or call me naïve, but there's not a single person in the national party that can vote for me in D.C. or other parts of Colorado. It's the men and women and small business owners and ranchers and farmers and families that are going to be voting for me."
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Katherine Fung is a Newsweek reporter based in New York City. Her focus is reporting on U.S. and world politics. ... Read more
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